Less than two weeks to go now and almost all the planning has been done.  Transport has been arranged and so has the hotel (or so England Athletics tell me ...).

Nutrition and hydration has been planned according to my expected speed and the average temperature in Perth at that time of year.

When finding historical weather data for Perth, must be careful to choose Scotland not Australia.


Just a few items of food to buy:  rice pudding, baby food, sultanas, custard, grapes and crystallised ginger.

All the training/hard work has been done now and I've recovered well from the crash training week.  Now I've just got to keep myself fit and healthy for almost a fortnight.  Mustn't do so much that I'm starting the race a bit tired ... but I've got to do enough so that I don't lose fitness.  Like all training there's a very fine line between getting it right and overdoing things.

The race website has begun to add news items now, hopefully things will be added on a regular basis over the following days and weeks.

My target ??  Ah yes, well I plan to go out at the same pace as I did at the Commonwealth Championships but have a much better final four hours.  Hopefully I've learned why my speed dropped so dramatically after 20 hours in Fitz Park, Keswick.  Whatever, the main points are that I know I can run further than I did last September but after the World Championships my confidence took a bit of a knock (I don't want to repeat that experience, thank you very much).

For next year it is beginning to look more and more likely that I'll be attempting a different race distance which  will be a challenge I'm really looking forward to.  That will be in the second half of 2011 ... more news as it happens.

One more thing ... there's a very good piece about Martin Fryer on the Commonwealth Championships website.